Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Minnie the Moocher

What a great song, and I just found out what it meant ... I mean the original 'Minnie the Moocher' by Cab Calloway. He recorded it in 1930, just on 50 years before it was used in The Blues Brothers. I was wondering what 'kick the gong' meant, and found it here. It means to smoke opium, and when Minnie did it, she had opium dreams of all kinds. And I guess we all know what a 'coker' is. That Minnie was quite a bad gal (but she had a heart as big as a whale).

But even more interesting, maybe, is the use of the word 'bloke', which I thought was English and Aussie, but not American. Hmmm ...

Hey folks here’s the story ’bout minnie the moocherShe was a lowdown hoocie coocherShe was the roughest toughest frailBut minnie had a heart as big as a whale

3 Comments:

Darwin Smith said...

Another reference to "kicking the gong" is found in the Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall movie "To Have and Have Not." In it Hoagy Carmichael sings a song about a man who had "20 hears privilege taken away from him when he kicked old Buddha's gong." I suspect there are other such references in music from the 30's and 40's and 50's.

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